Chapters (82)
- Cover
- Brand Page
- Orwell in Spain
- Orwell in Spain
- Introduction
- Editorial Note
- Acknowledgements
- Orwell’s Journey to Spain, December 1936
- Extract from ‘As I Please’, 42 [The Journey to Spain]
- Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950: Orwell’s Arrival in Barcelona
- Orwell in Spain, December 1936
- Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
- ‘British Author with the Militia’
- Eileen Blair to her mother
- To Eileen Blair
- Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
- Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
- Extract from letter to Victor Gollancz
- Orwell’s Wound
- To Cyril Connolly
- Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
- Escape from Spain
- BARCELONA 13TH JULY, 1937
- Charles Doran
- Homage to Catalonia
- X
- ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’
- Eileen Blair to John McNair
- George Kopp to Dr Laurence O’Shaughnessy
- Translation of letter written in Spanish by George Kopp to Lieutenant-Colonel Burillo,7 Chief of Police, Barcelona
- George Kopp to Eileen Blair
- Review of The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau; Volunteer in Spain by John Sommerfield
- To Rayner Heppenstall
- ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’
- Abstracts of Reports on the Spanish Civil War in the Daily Worker and News Chronicle, 1936–7
- To Amy Charlesworth
- To Charles Doran
- Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War
- To Geoffrey Gorer
- Review of Red Spanish Notebook by Mary Low and Juan Brea; Heroes of the Alcazar by R. Timmermans; Spanish Circus by Martin Armstrong
- To H. N. Brailsford
- Review of Storm Over Spain by Mairin Mitchell; Spanish Rehearsal by Arnold Lunn; Catalonia Infelix by E. Allison Peers; Wars of Ideas in Spain by Josée Castillejo; Invertebrate Spain by Josée Ortega y Gasset
- H. N. Brailsford to Orwell
- To H. N. Brailsford
- Review of The Tree of Gernika by G. L. Steer; Spanish Testament by Arthur Koestler
- To the Editor, Time and Tide
- To Raymond Mortimer
- To Stephen Spender
- To Geoffrey Gorer
- ‘Notes* on the Spanish Militias
- To the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement
- Sir Richard Rees to Orwell
- To the Editor, The Listener
- Review of Spain’s Ordeal1 by Robert Sencourt; Franco’s Rule [anonymous]
- Review of The Civil War in Spain by Frank Jellinek1
- Review of Searchlight on Spain by the Duchess of Atholl1
- To the Editor, Manchester Guardian
- To Yvonne Davet
- To Raymond Postgate
- Orwell made two copies of this summary of the article in La Flèche of 14 October 1938, by L.-P. Foucaud.
- Review of The Church in Spain, 1737-1937 by E. Allison Peers; Crusade in Spain by Eoin O’Dujfy1
- To Frank Jellinek
- ‘Release of George Kopp’
- ‘Caesarean Section in Spain
- To Yvonne Davet
- Review of Hotel in Flight by Nancy Johnstone
- Review of The Last Days of Madrid by S. Casado, translated by Rupert Croft-Cooke; Behind the Battle by T. C. Worsley
- Review of The Spanish Dilemma by E. Allison Peers; A Key to Victory: Spain by Charles Duff
- Extract from War-time Diary
- Review of The Forge by Arturo Barea,1 translated and with an introduction by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell2
- Extract from letter to Partisan Review
- Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 22 [Comparison with the Spanish Civil War]
- ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ [1942?]
- Proposed BBC Broadcast on the Spanish Civil War
- Review of Spain in Eclipse, 1937–1943 by E. Allison Peers; Behind the Spanish Mask by Lawrence Dundas
- Extract from ‘As I Please’, 10 [How the lie becomes truth]
- ‘The Eight Years of War: Spanish Memories’
- Review of An Interlude in Spain by Charles d’Ydewalle, translated by Eric Sutton
- Review of The Clash by Arturo Barea1
- Orwell’s Pamphlet Collection
- A summary of letters from and to David Astor, 4 and 5
- Further Reading
In June 1937, Left Review solicited reactions of writers to the Spanish Civil War. A questionnaire, prefaced by an appeal to writers to take sides, ‘For it is impossible any longer to take no side’, was sent out by Nancy Cunard. 1 The appeal was issued over the names of twelve writers, who included Louis Aragon, W. H. Auden, Heinrich Mann, Ivor Montagu, Stephen Spender, Tristan Tzara and Nancy Cunard (who processed the replies). Lawrence & Wishart published the result as a pamphlet, Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War, in December 1937. Authors were asked, ‘Are you for, or against, the legal Government and People of Republican Spain? Are you for, or against, Franco and Fascism?’ Authors were asked to answer in half a dozen lines. Although many wrote briefly (Samuel Beckett especially so, turning three words into one: ‘¡UPTHEREPUBLIC!’, and Rose Macaulay in two words, ‘AGAINST FRANCO’), many wrote more fully. Orwell’s letter to Nancy Cunard was believed to have been lost. On 18 March 1994, the New Statesman published an article by Andy Croft, ‘The Awkward Squaddie’, which included part of Orwell’s reply to Nancy Cunard; it had been written on the back of the appeal. She typed a copy (or had a copy typed) of Orwell’s reply and sent it to the editor of Left Review, Randall Swingler, among whose papers it was found by Andy Croft, together with a covering letter from Nancy Cunard to Swingler. The copy of Orwell’s letter is headed ‘Letter received, addressed to me, at Paris address, Aug 6. 1937’; it is not clear whether the 6 August is the date Orwell sent his letter or the date of its receipt. In his article, Croft correctly sets the context of this letter between the publication of the two parts of ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’, 29 July and 2 September 1937 (see above). But there is a more specific, and more significant, context, revealed by the letters published here. Orwell was desperately anxious about the fate of his former colleagues rotting in jails in Spain as a result of the ‘reign of terror’ to which he refers in his letter to Nancy Cunard. For a much fuller note see XI/386A.